The annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN), also known as the "Kidney Week", is the largest gathering in the world of clinical and translational investigators and basic scientists working in the field of nephrology. During the first two days of the Kidney Week, the ASN sponsors a series of intensive symposia including a 2-day annual symposium on "Epidemiology, Comparative Effectiveness and Clinical Studies in Nephrology" for clinician investigators, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, early- to mid-career academicians, practicing physicians and allied health care professionals. The subject area of this symposium is developed and reviewed thoroughly by the ASN's Post-Graduate Education (PGE) Committee and reflects important and time-sensitive areas of translational and clinical investigations with important clinical and public health implications in the management of kidney diseases and their related cardiovascular morbidities. This year's symposium will be titled "Improving Conduct and Design of Pragmatic Trials and Clinical Studies in Nephrology" and held during the upcoming ASN Kidney Week on November 8 and 9, 2011, in Philadelphia Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA. The symposium will feature 36 established investigators, who are mostly recognized as world class leaders in clinical studies and controlled trials and who will speak on diverse aspects of design and conduct of patient-centered and translational studies with focus on pragmatic trials and practice aligned studies. The topics covered will include review of recent and currently ongoing NIDDK-sponsored trials, pragmatic clinical trials, practice based studies and cluster trials, point-of-care trials including in Veterans Administrations settings, Bayesian adaptive design randomization, rare kidney disease trials, type 2 translational research in CKD and AKI and their implications for the community, ancillary studies to ongoing NIDDK trials, data collection prospective studies, biomarker studies, bio-banking and human specimen storage, use of patients-related outcomes as trial endpoints, technology and device development trials, and relevant ethical topics related to clinical studies including the responsible conduct of research. The selected topics are also consistent with the NIH roadmap and the objectives of the Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI) to promoted clinical and translational investigation with immediate impact on community health. At this conference, ASN members and other interested participants will have the chance to interact with world leaders in the field. The purpose of this grant application is to request funds for travel awards for junior faculty and early career investigators, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students, so that they can attend this conference during the first 2 days of the ASN annual Kidney Week in Philadelphia. The symposium is in collaboration with the Kidney Urology and Hematology (KUH) Division of NIDDK. Minority and women are well represented among both planning committee and invited faculty members, and there are plans to sponsor minority and women as well as individuals with disabilities for the travel grants and other activities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The goal of this annual conference is to improve education and awareness of the kidney disease community about the importance of clinical research with immediate impact on improving kidney disease outcomes in the community. The focus of this year's conference is to update the clinician investigators about the design and conduct of trials and clinical studies that are practical and inexpensive and that can improve the kidney and heart diseases in nation. Conference participants usually developed collaborative relationships with some of the faculty speakers, which greatly facilitate advancing kidney disease research and the potential to develop therapies that can improve the health of the population.